UNIVERSITY EXTENSION IN THE SOUTHERN 

MOUNTAINS 

Bv WILLIAM GOODELL FROST, Ph.D. 





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Reurinted fro7n The Ontlook of September j", ih 





HAND MILL 



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University Extension in the Southern Mountains 



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By William Goodell Frost, Ph.D. 



'HE picturesque adventares which we 
are to describe are somewhat of a 
satire upon the dio;nified work known 
as university extension, but they have the 
same purpose — to bring the best elements of 
civilization within reach of the people — and 
they have the primal pedagogic quality of 
adaptation. 

To estimate the success of this adaptation 
we must know the country and the people. 
How shall the ideas which characterize a 
modern university be interpreted to the 
family of a moonshiner on " Hell-fer-sar tin 
Creek " ? Externally the inhabitants of the 
Southern mountains are not, at first glance, 
prepossessing. Their homespun garb, often 
in tatters, rude speech, and shuffling gait, 
might lead us to class them with the "poor 
white trash." But there could be no greater 
mistake. The landless, luckless " poor white," 
degraded by actual competition with slave 
labor, is far removed in spirit from the 
narrow-horizoned but proud owner of 
a mountain "boundary." The "poor 
white " is actually degraded ; the 
mountain man is a person not yet 
graded up. 

The mountaineer is to be regarded 
as a survival. From this point of view 
his variations from the regulation type 
of the American citizen are both inter- 
esting and instructive. In his speech 
you will soon detect the flavor of 
Chaucer ; in his home you shall see 
the fireside industries of past ages ; 
his very homicides are an honest sur- 
vival of Saxon temper — in a word, he 
is our contemporary ancestor ! 

The causes which have retarded his 
development are not far to seek. Take 
the circle of Southern States east of 
the great river, and each of them, ex- 
cept Florida and Mississippi, has a 
mountain back yard of large propor- 
tions. Bunched together, these moun- 
tain fractions constitute one of the 
largest horseback areas on the globe. 
From Harper's Ferry to the iron hills 
of Birmingham, two hundred miles 
and more in width — " knobs," caves, 
ridges, forests — stretches this inland 
empire which we are beginning to rec- 



ognize by the name of Appalachian America. 
It has no coast-line like Greece, no arms of the 
sea like Scotland, no inland lakes or naviga- 
ble rivers like Switzerland. Is it any wonder 
that pioneer conditions have lingered in a 
country where the only highways are the beds 
of streams ? The whole South has been very 
slow about " coming to town." The Governor 
of one of the.ic States recently said that a 
quarter of the people had never seen the 
court-house in their own county. And the 
people on " Ciitshin " or "No Bizness 
Branch " have a good excuse. Progress must 
be slow in a land of saddle-bags. 

Our extension work began with a prelimi- 
nary tour five years ago. Our mountain guide 
was an old soldier who had moved to Berea 
to educate his family. •• Children was all 
gals — all but the least one — and there was a 
better show fer 'em to teach in the mountings 
than to raise craps." He could find some 




MOUNTAIN GIRLS COMING TO BEREA 



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MOUNTAIN PRKACHERS FROM THE BLUE RIDGE 



kinsfolk or an old comrade in nearly every 
countv. 

The time chosen was August, when the 
roads are least forbidding, and the mountain 
schools in session. The outfit was a saddle, 
saddle pockets, extra woolen shirt, rubber 
blanket, insect powder, com^b and tooth-brush, 
pocket knife, five dollars in silver dimes, a 
Testament, package of postal cards, and a 
few leaflets. 

The general plan was to speak at the school- 
houses, sending a boy ahead to "norate" 
the people the day before. We could visit 
a school-house as early as eight o'clock in 
the morning, and by hard riding reach a 
second school-house by eleven. Here, after 
the " speakin'," we would be invited to " come 
by " with a neighbor, and take a " snack." 
Another ride would bring us to our third 
school-house, where we would speak, take 
supper in the neighborhood, and preach at 
" early candlehght." Our " gaited " horses, 
with their '• running walk " or •' single step," 
never fatigued us ; invitations were plenty, 
chickens abundant, and week after week we 
kept up our four meetings a day. Saturday 
was set apart for rest, and on Sundays we 
planned to strike some " Association " meet- 
ing, or funeral. 

The mountain funeral is a survival from the 



time when preachers were scarce. It rarely 
takes place at the time of interment. It will 
be remembered that the boy Lincoln had a 
funeral sermon preached for his mother long 
after her death. In the mountains it is a 
convenience to have this ceremony at a time 
when the roads will be passable, and there is 
likely to be a large gathering of kinsfolk. 
Several memorial sermons will sometimes be 
preached on the same day. The prominence 
thus given to funerals during the months of 
good roads assists the fatalistic doctrines of 
the preachers in giving a very somber cast to 
their religion. 

The Association meetings are held in the 
summer for the same reason. In one thing 
it must be confessed the mountain people 
have degenerated— T-they have lost the great 
Protestant idea that a minister must be an 
educated man. A few of their preachers 
aspire to greater knowledge — several have 
moved to Berea and entered school. But 
the majority rather glory in their ability to 
speak " as the Spirit gives them utterance." 
And their utterance is loud. The present 
writer was invited to preach at one of these 
associations, and in the middle of his dis- 
course one woman nudged another, with the 
remark, " I wish he'd quit talkin' and go to 
preachin' !" 










MRS. YOCUM STARTING ON EXTENSION WORK 



man unusually well 
court day," we asked 

" I couldn't get nary 



And it is sad to see that this class of 
preachers is still being replenished. One 
young man, persuaded to attend a Southern 
theological school, was backiin three months 
fully equipped. 

" Yas," he said, " the Seminary is a good 
place ter go and get rested up, but 'tain't 
while fer me ter go thar no more 's long as 
I've got good wind.'" 

Meeting a young 
dressed at a mountain " 
if he was a teacher. 

" No," he answered ; 
certificate." 

•' What are you doing, may I ask ?" 

" I'm tendin' some churches," was the un- 
abashed reply. 

And in proportion to their lack of educa- 
tion is their sectarian assurance. We found 
four kinds of Baptists, each refusing to rec- 
ognize the validity of the ordinances as per- 
formed by the others. 

In order to appeal to their strong religious 
sentiments, and yet avoid sectarian entangle- 
ments, we confined our preaching pretty 
closely to the Ten Commandments and a 
few undisputed but neglected truths and 
duties. If we preached to Baptists, they paid 
us the compliment of saying, " That's good 
Baptist^doctrine." If we were among Meth- 



odists they, too, claimed us. On one occa- 
sion they came to our guide to ask to what 
'■ persuasion " we belonged. His answer was 
diplomatic : " If you air a preacher, and hev 
got yer Bible, and then can't spot yer man 
when ye hear him, I hain't a-goin' ter tell ye." 

Following our tour of observation, we sent 
out a quartette of singers — a Berea teacher, 
a student of mature years, and a man and his 
wife who had been born in the mountains 
but educated in Berea. This " troupe " gives 
two entertainments on successive nights in 
the same place, and a varied programme of 
songs and addresses. They are followed 
from place to place by crowds of young people 
on horseback. The entertainments are given 
at night, and during the day the quartette 
disperses to visit schools and homes. Hos- 
pitality is unbounded, and many of the most 
important lessons are given at the fireside. 
Not infrequently the people will keep us 
awake till a late hour with questions, and 
sleep on the floor to give us a bed. 

And this reminds us of the surprising pro- 
priety with which a dozen people of both 
sexes can sleep in the same room. Such an 
arrangement is expected on the occasion of 
all great gatherings, and is the regular way 
of living in most households. A lady of our 
party once went alone to lodge with an old 



couple whose children were all married and 
gone. The lady was shown into one of the 
two rooms of the house, and the hostess 
kindly said, " Now there air plenty of beds in 
this room. Me and my ole man generally 
sleep in the other room, but if you air the 
least mite lonesome we will come in here and 
sleep.'' 

Each year the work has become more sys- 
tematic and effective, and with increasing 
acquaintance we can profitably make a longer 
stay in each place. This makes the work 
much less arduous, especially for our ladies. 
One way of unobtrusively correcting the gro- 
tesque ideas Disseminated by the mountain 
preachers has been to send a lady teacher to 
give '• Bible readings." There is the utmost 
reverence for the IMble, and while religious 
teaching by a man would be watched for 
points of controversy, and religious teaching 
by a woman would be considered out of 
place, the reading of select portions of Scrip- 
ture, with natural explanations, meets with 
nothing but open-mouthed and grateful atten- 
tion. Mrs. Yocum, of our Normal Depart- 
ment, accompanied by her little son, rode 
above five hundred miles the past summer. 

As our illustrations show, there has been 
opportunity for not a few observations of 
mountain life which have been instructive 
and exciting to the lecturers themselves. 



" Known to be preachers or as s^ood as preach- 
ers," they move among the roughest people 
with entire safety, and even find pertnission 
to photograph a moonshine still. And many 
are the tales of adventure connected with the 
late war — border tales that remind us of the 
Revolution — recounted by our friendly hosts. 
The mountain people were divided, though 
the greater part were steadfast in loyalty to 
the old flag. 

" W ere 3'ou in the war ?" 

"Yes, sir; I was one of Morgan's horse- 
thieves." 

" How fast could you ride when the Yanks 
were after you ?" 

"Well, I couldn't ride fast enough, fer 
thev caught me and sent me up into Ohier." 

Jackson County, Kentucky, cla'ms to have 
sent more men into the Union Army in pro- 
portion to its population than any other 
county in the Nation. It is one of twenty 
contiguous counties without a printing-press. 
They adjourned court there to listen to a talk 
on education, and at its close one of the 
natives said, " Stranger, I could understand 
right smart of what you was a-tellin'. We 
had an officer in our regiment from New 
York or summers what spoke the same dia- 
lect as yeou do !" 

The characters of the Craddock tales are 
easily verified in these excursions as types of 




HAND LOOM 




AMtRICAN HIGHLANDERS 



real life, as well as Abe Shivers, and Easter, 
the lovely heroine of John Fox's " Mountain 
Europa." Mr. Cable has touched mountain 
life only in " John March, Southerner." but his 
pictures are very characteristic. Lillian Bell, 
in her "Little Sister to the Wilderness," has 
given a picture of similar life in western 
Tennessee, and a word from her preface 
justly describes some of our highland friends 

" I have been led by the cry of the inai 
ticulate, of that large, not-to-be-ignored por 
tion of humanity whose thoughts need an 
interpreter : who, with womanish, nice percep- 
tions, lack equally nice distinction in terms to 
enable them to express the fine shades of 
meaning which it is their gift to feel. 

" They belong to that vast majority of 
people who, when you have taken pity on 
their hesitation and finished their sentences 
for them, cry out to you in gratitude." 

The native refinement of some of the 
mountain folk is surprising. The women 
commonly wear knitted woolen mitts at all 
public gatherings, even in the summer-time, 
as a tribute to conventionality. Many a girl 
who has come to us barefooted, and without 
so much as a night-robe or an "individual 
comb," has been transformed within six 
months into a neat and self-possessed young 



woman, whose humble origin would not be 
suspected. 

The extension work has not been merely 
a series of excursions. We feel that there 
has been too much "touring" and "exploit- 
ing " of the mountains even by well-meaning 
preachers, who have made no provision for 
permanent results, and who seem to the 
people rather irresponsible. The university 
extension work has been purposeful from 
the start. It has proceeded from one well- 
known centei, and the people have felt that 
" that thar College at Bereer what old Fee 
and Cassius Clay started before the Wah, is 
a-sendin' these speakers." It has been made 
personal and " friendly " by the acquaintance 
of a few Berea students even from the most 
remote counties. 

And the lines of effort have been well de- 
fined. The problem is to make the belated 
dwellers in the hills sharers in the best ele- 
ments of our civilization. This is quite unique 
as an educational undertaking. There has 
never been such a problem before. We had, 
to be sure, a great Western frontier, but its 
pioneer settlements were always furnished with 
some proportion of educated men, and were 
closely bound to the older parts of the country. 
But in the case of this vast mountain region 




LOG SCHOOL-HuaSE ON BUFFALO HILL 
Atteaded by thirty-five pupils. 



there is no such leaven, and no such bond of 
communion with the rest of the world. There 
has never been a clearer call for the interven- 
tion of some intelligent guiding force. 

Two principles have been kept steadily in 
mind : In the first place, our aim has been to 
give the essential rather than the accidental 
elements of civilization — to make the people 
sharers in the best things, but leave them un- 
sophisticated. We will not teach them to 
despise the log-cabin, but to adorn it. And, 
in the second place, we respect their sturdy 
independence and endeavor only to help them 
to help themselves. The work is interde- 
nominational — we co-operate with all Chris- 
tian bodies. Instruction in the arts of life — 
hygiene, forestry, thrift, etc., is provided to give 
them at once new motives and new resources. 
And, above all, we propose to teach them to 
make the most of the common schools, which 
are barely in existence but have in them the 
germs of all good. 



The States concerned in Appalachian 
America are all poor, inexperienced in popu- 
lar education, and wholly unable to deal with 
the mountain problem. In many localities 
the school-houses are so far apart that half 
the population is practically debarred. The 
schools are so short that little learning is 
possible for the pupil, and little professional 
equipment for the teacher. And, finally, 
there is no one in the district who has an 
ideal of what a school ought to be. 

To meet these conditions extension work 
seems more practicable and useful than great 
"conventions" or "conferences." The con- 
ference brings together those already inter- 
ested ; the extension work wakes up the 
people who are indifferent. Various forms 
of instruction are adopted. The popular 
lecture " The Ladder of Success " has been 
given hundreds of times. Talks on United 
States history are enjoyed by young and old. 
Discourses on how to make the most of the 




A MOONSHINE STILL 
The lecturer was led to this spot blindfolded, and the proprietor of the still prudently turned his back. 



free school, the duties of school trustees, 
etc., and special meetings for farmers, for 
housewives, for preachers, and for teachers, 
are examples of the varied adaptations. Not 
least important is the discourse on " Arbitra- 
tion," or " How to Settle Family Feuds with 
out Bloodshed." Extension libraries and 
extension publications have been used as 
freely as our means would permit, and have 
helped to make the long period of " bad 
roads " less a time of mere hibernation in the 
mountains. 

Very considerable results are already ap- 
parent. The people begin to understand what 
education means. New topics of thought 
and conversation are introduced. New stand- 
ards are set up. The tone and even the 
outward appearance of many communities 
has been noticeably changed. And a very 
furor of desire for more of the same thing 
has been awakened. 

Our lecturers not only give but gather much 



useful information, picking up old EngUsh bal- 
lads with interesting variants, and collecting 
countless " specimens " of old-time customs 
as well as ottier fossils from the hills. 

We cannot allow our clients, the mountain 
people, to be called ignorant, for that term 
implies a certain moral delinquency. Rather 
let us paraphrase it and say that, Hke the 
patriarchs, they are unaware of the distinctive 
features of modern life. 

Nor are they to receive this service at our 
hands simply because of their need. We 
need them also. What does America need so 
much as Americans .-' And here they are — 
vigorous, unjaded of nerve, prolific, patriotic 
— full of the blood and spirit of Seventy-six. 
For many years they will not need a univer- 
sity ; but if they are to be set in step with the 
world, and saved from the corrupting influ- 
ence of the baser elements of civiUzation, 
they must have the sympathetic and skillful 
guidance of this university extension work. 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 928 866 3 f| 



